Wounded
by lunatic922
Summary: Lydia and Scott come to grips with their shared history as victims of Peter Hale.


"So, Ms. Martin, how are we today?"

"Fine."

Lydia Martin suppressed a sigh and gave the minimum response required. She had no interest in wasting her time or anyone else's.

Ever since Jackson had been shipped across the pond, her mom had upgraded her from occasional sessions at the guidance office to bi-weekly trips to a real therapist.

Her mom needn't have bothered, Lydia thought. The therapist couldn't possibly have better insight into her situation than Ms. Morrell. For starters, the therapist resembled the grandfather from a Werther's commercial—right down to the green wool cardigan and kindly smile. However, at least she knew who's side Werther was on: her mother's.

"Junior year is a big year. Your mom tells me you're getting a head start on applying to colleges. Are you excited?"

"I guess," she shrugged.

Truth was, Lydia had been thrilled to be back at school. She'd even spearheaded an AP calculus study group. Not that she needed to study. She'd been doing college-level calculus since she was twelve. But it kept her mind off of Jackson and everything that happened recently. And off of _him_.

Encouraged, Werther smiled.

"Do you know, I read about a very brave woman who survived an animal attack, much like yours."

Lydia pursed her lips.

Werther smiled again. "Would you like to discuss your attack?"

No, Lydia didn't want to discuss "her attack."

Especially since she doubted it even remotely approximated Debbie Homemaker's brush with an angry raccoon.

"Not really."

Werther frowned and removed his glasses. He placed them on his notepad and adopted a stern expression. Stern didn't really suit him, Lydia mused. It looked like a poor imitation of the real thing on his grandfatherly face.

"Ms. Martin. Lydia. We're going to have to talk about this at some point. After all, it's the reason you're here."

_Ding._

The timer on the desk chimed, signaling the end of the session. Lydia sprang up from her seat.

"Oh, look. Time's up. Bye."

The old man sighed and massaged his temples. Tougher men had tried to crack the mental armor Lydia had built up and failed. Werther didn't stand a chance.

"I'll see you in two weeks."

"You betcha." Lydia winked and strutted out into the hall. Luckily, it was an 8 am appointment and she now had the rest of the day to herself.

She felt a stab of guilt. Werther was just trying to do his job after all. But he couldn't help her. If he knew the truth, he'd throw Lydia into the nuthouse and commit her for life without so much as a second thought.

Lydia _had_ been attacked.

But not by an animal.

Her attacker had been a literal monster out of a horror story. A werewolf.

Her hand drifted down to her side where beneath her dress lingered the faint scars of Peter Hale's devastating bite. The faded bite ached at the memory of the night she was ambushed.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

It had been their Winter Formal. Jackson was supposed to see her and tell her she was beautiful and he was sorry for being such a jerk. They'd slow dance and he'd admit they belonged together, no matter what. They were two sides of the same shiny coin—perfect, popular and suited to each other like lock and key. The night should have been magical.

Instead, it had been a nightmare. One that left her bleeding out on the empty lacrosse field. Instead of waking up, she remained trapped; doomed to a world brimming with monsters, blood and violence, doomed to find the bodies, their deaths siren songs that called her to them.

Lydia walked out into the parking lot, car keys in hand, and thought back to the start of the summer.

The night after the warehouse was the only time Jackson talked about everything that happened. He told her about Scott becoming a werewolf, the Alpha after Allison's family and of his resolve to accept the bite from Derek. His tale filled in the far too numerous gaps in the information she'd cobbled together on her own. But after that one night, he refused to open up about the strangeness that had infiltrated their lives.

Then Jackson vanished the morning following the full moon. He left without telling her—a post card from London with the word "goodbye" scrawled on it arrived in the mail a week later.

Though Allison came back to Beacon Hills, they avoided discussing werewolves, especially the Hales.

Lydia longed to share her experience with someone who would understand. But it wasn't as if she could easily find someone who'd been through a similar ordeal. She'd browsed online through dozens of accounts detailing first-hand werewolf attacks and all struck her as half-fictions and delusions. To her knowledge there was no support group for people who had actually survived genuine werewolf attacks.

Then a new thought struck her.

Lydia cursed under her breath, truly embarrassed she hadn't realized the solution earlier. With renewed purpose she unlocked her car and got behind the wheel. The engine turned over easily and she pulled out of the lot.

There was someone else she knew who had survived a werewolf attack. In fact, he'd been attacked by the very same werewolf as she.

Scott McCall.

* * *

Lydia stared down at the track from her hidden vantage point in the chemistry lab. No one would know she was there—unless they were looking for her. And there was only one person she wanted to notice her.

She had told the new Chem teacher that she wanted to do some work on a project she was hoping to submit to a prestigious chemistry competition. She appealed to him to let her attempt a complicated experiment so she could earn an award to list on her early admissions application to MIT and Berkley.

Naturally, her teacher didn't object to the best chemistry student in his class using the lab for college application work. If Lydia won an award, it burnished his reputation as well.

Thanks to Jackson's time on the lacrosse team, she knew all about Coach's track mandate for the players. It gave her the perfect chance to get some time alone with Scott.

Lydia moved closer to the window. She had a perfect view of the field, and more importantly, the bleachers where Scott sat with Stiles and Isaac. As usual, Stiles and Isaac bickered over some unknown prize while Scott tuned them out. While Stiles and Isaac argued, she seized the opportunity to grab Scott's attention.

"Scott? Can you hear me?"

Lydia spoke in her normal voice, confident the werewolf would hear her. Jackson had mentioned using a similar tactic on Scott in the cafeteria once before.

He straightened in his seat and looked up at the window. She watched his eyes hone in and she knew he could see her standing there.

"Good." She smiled, knowing he could see that, too. "We need to talk. Meet me here after practice. Nod if you got that."

He nodded. He was still staring at her, waiting for further explanation when the starting gun went off. He jolted and his attention returned to the track.

Lydia walked over to the chemical cabinet. She began removing the ingredients needed for her experiment. Practice would go at least two hours. She saw no point in letting good lab time go to waste.

* * *

Three hours later Scott finally opened the door to the classroom and Lydia sat on a desk, awaiting his arrival. Next to her was a flask with a deep blue liquid, the results of her experiment. He gently closed the door behind him, but remained standing near the exit.

"Well, it's about time. I'm not a girl who likes to be kept waiting." Lydia flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled coyly.

Scott rubbed at his nose and scowled. Lydia realized that the smell of the chemicals must bother him. She quickly screwed the cap onto her beaker, chiding herself for overlooking something so obvious. His shoulders relaxed.

"Thanks. I came as fast as I could," Scott said. "And you can drop the act, Lydia."

"Fine, have it your way." Her smile melted away.

Lydia crossed her arms over her chest. Scott looked her up and down, quirking his mouth into a wry smile.

"What's the occasion?"

Lydia rolled her eyes.

Today, she wore a blue dress and a pair of very tall pink heels. Her jewelry was very, very, pointy and very, very, shiny. Lydia knew the effect of her attire was similar to a soldier's armor. Just as she intended. Thinking about _him_ left her feeling vulnerable.

She wanted to feel strong again.

"So, what did you want to talk about? Jackson?" Scott asked her.

She stiffened at the mention of Jackson's name. Scott looked down at his feet.

"Sorry."

Lydia ignored the apology.

"I came here to talk about…" she hesitated. _Strength, Lydia._ She straightened and held her head up. "Him."

"Him?" Scott blinked. Lydia rubbed her right side and avoided his questioning gaze. Scott's eyes followed the movement. "Oh. _Him._"

"It's just that…you're the only one I know who's been attacked by him. No one else knows what it's like."

"No, they don't." Scott's voice was soft. He leaned against a nearby desk.

No one else did know what it had been like for them.

How it felt to be cornered by a red-eyed beast. How it felt to be pinned to the ground, helpless as the monster sank its teeth into your side. Not knowing if he was going to kill you or let you live.

Just them. The only two victims attacked by Peter Hale who lived to tell about it.

"He bit you, too. Just like me," she said.

"But you stayed human."

Scott didn't bother to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Lydia looked away. By some grace, she had escaped the fate that haunted him. The great divergence in their experiences at the hands of Peter Hale.

Scott placed his hand against his own right side. Unlike Lydia, he would never have physical scars from that night. But the scars lingered all the same. The sadness in his eyes made it clear that things had been taken from him, just as they'd been taken from her.

"Did he ever…"

"Did he ever what?" Scott shifted on the desk, increasing the space between them.

"Get into your head? Make you see things? Things that weren't there?"

"He can do that with you?" Scott asked, eyes wide with surprise. Lydia's heart beat a little faster.

"Yes. All the time. I hate it," she laughed darkly. "But I can't keep him out."

She wrapped her arms around herself, unable to keep out the cold she felt. "I hate it. Knowing he can creep inside my mind like that."

"Like he owns you," Scott said quietly. "There were dreams. And blackouts. Once, in the beginning, I woke up in the woods, no idea how I got there. But there's more. He made me do things."

Fingers of ice crawled up Lydia's spine, deepening the cold.

"What kind of things?" She whispered. Scott's averted his eyes.

"He could make me shift."

"Shift?"

"You know. _Transform_," he spat the word out. "Against my will."

Scott's balled his hands into fists. He turned his face back to her, the expression in his brown eyes belonging to someone much older than a 16-year-old boy.

"And worse."

"Worse?" Lydia stood and took a step towards him. Her fear equaled her curiosity. Did she really want to know the answer?

"He wanted me to hurt people."

"Like the night at the school." Lydia's voice was flat, the final piece of that horrible night falling into place. "He wanted you to kill us."

"Yes."

"Did you want to?"

Scott looked away again and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Yes."

He heard Lydia's sharp intake of breath and glanced over. She stood motionless, eyes fixed on him. She now realized what it had meant for him to lock them in the classroom that night.

"Why didn't you, then? How did you stop him?"

How had he resisted while she had failed? She never failed at anything. She always got what she wanted. Except with _him_.

"Allison. She was my anchor."

"What's an anchor?"

"It's a...thing. For us. Something that ties us to our human side. Kinda hard to explain."

"Oh." She looked at him. "But now you can control it?"

"Yep." He shifted his hand and wiggled his claws. She approached him and took his hand, lightly, turning it over in her own hand.

"That is so—strange."

She studied his skin and the claws that topped off his elongated fingers. "Does it hurt when you do that?"

"No. Not anymore."

Methodically, she examined each finger, testing the points with the tip of her thumb. The change had been swift, the transformation seamless. The fingers of a boy were now the dangerous claws of a monster.

As if he sensed her thoughts, Scott squirmed and pulled his hand away, the claws reverting back to fingers.

Lydia stepped back, giving him space. She looked directly in his eyes. Her heartbeat slowed. There was no fear, only a need for answers. Scott had done it. He'd beaten Peter at his mind games.

If she looked into those eyes long enough, maybe she'd uncover the answers she needed. The keys to keeping the monster at bay.

"He made me do things too."

She walked over to the window, her eyes drawn not to the field, but the forest beyond.

"He said everyone would die if I didn't."

Scott didn't say anything and she continued to talk.

"I couldn't fight him. I hurt people."

Lydia was the reason _he_ was alive and no longer buried beneath the Hale house.

After all the things he had done. All the people he'd killed. All the people he'd hurt. What he did to her. _He_ was the ultimate monster. And she helped him rise from the ashes to have a second chance at torturing them all, a puppet on strings pulled by a monster.

"I didn't know how to stop him," her voice dropped to a whisper. "I had to do it."

"It's not your fault. It's his."

Scott put a hand on her shoulder and she spun around to face him.

"But it is my fault. I was weak. I failed, Scott. You didn't."

She expected Scott to try to offer her the usual platitudes, but instead what he said next surprised her.

"He's not the Alpha anymore."

Lydia rolled her eyes at the change in subject.

"He wasn't an Alpha last spring, either."

"What I mean is...you're my friend. You're part of my…" Scott shook his head.

_Pack._ She finished the sentence in her mind.

Scott looked at her, his eyes narrowed, a darkness now replacing the haunted look from earlier.

"I'm an Alpha now. I'm not going to let him hurt anyone again. But we both know there's only one way to stop him."

Scott's eyes flashed red, his wolf springing to life. As quickly as the ember had flared, Scott tamped it down, the animal glow draining from his eyes. But a very human coldness remained.

Then the implication of his words sunk in.

Only one way to stop him.

The thing she'd fantasized about each night, her own talisman to ward off her personal boogeyman. Every detail planned. Every strategy explored. Every path to freedom mapped, over and over until she could walk them in her sleep.

"What are you saying?"

She asked, disbelieving. Surely, Scott wasn't suggesting what she thought he was.

"Say the word, and it's done," he said. There was no hesitation in his voice, no emotion at all. He was serious. "He'll be dead for good this time."

She met his dark look and knew her expression mirrored his. She smiled.

"You'll need my help, then. We have a lot to do."


End file.
